The Santa Ana winds were blowing this weekend (gently this time) and the warm wind was coming off the desert—I got that old feeling in the pit of my stomach. We were burned out in the 1993 fire, the same fire that also burned 400 homes, mostly in East Malibu. After something like that, you’re never innocent again. Stuff does happen. I’ve been following the fires up north; we have friends in Sonoma who are fortunately OK, but all I can suggest is that the fire risk in Malibu is high. You best call your insurance agent and make sure your coverage is up-to-date.
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The weather was hot, the waves were really big, the surfers were streaming into town, the parking was quickly overloaded and then the local, nonexistent gendarmerie were having a wonderful time writing parking tickets. I’m sure the city enjoys all sorts of additional fine revenue when the town gets crowded but it strikes me that the city has some obligation to provide additional parking, not just myopically treat a hot day as a wonderful revenue opportunity. Besides, our town is filled with phony “no parking” signs, fake garage fronts and driveways, restaurants with employees who take all the street parking spots as well as red and yellow curbs (which either haven’t been painted in years and have faded to a dull gray or are the result of a little self-painting by some local home or business owner). Then, the limited parking space is enforced by volunteers—make-believe cops who I doubt have ever read the vehicle code and whose idea of a retirement career is to run around with a little traffic ticket device, revenging life’s insults. Lastly, if you want to see the judge and fight the ticket, there is actually no judge; the entire process has been outsourced to some private company in Orange County, who say “write us a letter and we will look it over.” I think it’s time our city stops scamming its citizens and visitors just because they can. The only difference between Ferguson, Mo., and Malibu, Calif., is that people here can afford to pay the tickets, so they pay it, grumble and forget that they’re being ripped off.
P.S. Guess who got a parking ticket this weekend.
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The sailing ship San Salvador—the replica of Juan Cabrillo’s ship that sailed up and down California in the 1600s—was supposed to be coming to Malibu this weekend. However, the visit has been cancelled for some safety reasons. I’ve heard that our Malibu Pier doesn’t pass safety muster and the captain decided he didn’t want to chance someone getting injured. I wonder if our pier is ever going to be fully operational so perhaps we might get something like a fishing boat back. The restaurants on the pier seem to be doing fine and the rental income (I assume) is coming in. So what’s the problem?
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I’ll bet most of you didn’t know that the City of Malibu passed an ordinance for a 30-minute parking limitation on Pacific Coast Highway directly in front of Surfrider Beach and adjacent to the Malibu Pier, on the ocean side as well as another roughly 1,000-foot 30-minute parking zone directly across the street on the land side (near the Casa Escobar restaurant). Parking restrictions are not that unusual but these restrictions—near both sides of the pier—are during the very high traffic times of 2-4 a.m. You might wonder why the city is anxious to clear the area in those early morning hours. It turns out, I believe, that they are not too happy with people parking their vehicles and campers near the pier and perhaps secretly sleeping in them overnight. They are even unhappier with the Malibu Surf Shack, which rents kayaks, stand-up surfboards and other ocean gear from its parked location at the pier. I’ve been told that the Surf Shack moves their equipment a few feet each day to avoid certain parking restrictions. This really frosts the city; it has come down hard on the Surf Shack for gaming the city regulations (which everybody knows only the city is allowed to do), hence these strange parking restrictions. Now enter the “white knight”—the California Coastal Commission—which has essentially said to the city “not so fast.” I will confess that the commission is not always my favorite agency but they have stepped into this imbroglio; it seems to believe that this parking restriction keeps people from enjoying the ocean and beaches in the early morning hours, and set the matter for discussion. In fact, they go as far as saying that the 30-minute parking restriction, among other things, doesn’t allow time to “enjoy a moonlight walk along the sand” in their staff report. I’m truly impressed that a state agency is willing to stick out its neck and stand up for romance in an often hard and unfeeling world. It’s causing me to consider re-evaluating my entire opinion of the commission, which I had previously believed to be an unfeeling group of bureaucrats. We will soon find out—whether love triumphs or the crushing forces of bureaucracy carry the day—when the commission meets today.